


Days of Celebration

by EllieL



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28046985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieL/pseuds/EllieL
Summary: Leia’s days of celebration inevitably involved arallutes and white silk gowns, platinum jewelry and braided crowns, speeches and cheers and applause.As always, Han was waiting for her, silent and unobtrusive, to smile and wrap an arm around her when it was time to depart.For the December 2020 HanLeia Challenge prompt "holiday." Except I went a completely different direction than the usual holiday fluff.
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44
Collections: HanLeia Challenge





	Days of Celebration

Alderaan had always been a culture that loved holidays and festivals. They celebrated rites of passage, changes of season, birth and death. Such things had been an essential part of life on their planet, so in the nascent days of the New Republic, when Alderaanians were finding one another again and reestablishing their culture together, their holidays became one of the most publicly recognizable part of its renaissance.

Leia’s days of celebration inevitably involved arallutes and white silk gowns, platinum jewelry and braided crowns, speeches and cheers and applause. She gave them the professional smile they required, the kissed cheeks and shaken hands. She took bouquets from children and blessed children for parents. She was, on the day, always the figurehead that they needed, the last Organa dutifully fulfilling her role, keeping memories of her lost world alive for future generations.

As always, Han was waiting for her, silent and unobtrusive, to smile and wrap an arm around her when it was time to depart, kissing the top of her head as they walked. It always drew a few happy sighs from the romantics among the celebrants. No one ever saw just how much she leaned on that arm as they walked back to the Falcon. 

At the base of the ramp they paused, and turned back to smile and wave. Their arms went back around one another, and they strode up the ramp into the waiting ship. The ramp had barely closed when she turned into his embrace, burying her face in his chest and weeping.

All he could do was close his arms around her, holding her safe, hands lightly soothing up and down her back. Though he hated seeing her cry, he didn’t try to stop her, letting her sob until his shirt was soaked and her breath was heaving. Only when her fists tangled in his shirt and her legs seemed to give out did he silently guide her deeper into the ship, back to the lounge where he sat on the acceleration bench and pulled her into his lap.

There, the tears worsened, until she could barely breathe and could cry no more. His hands kept their steady rhythm up and down her back, as he made soothing sounds into her hair. Kissing along her hairline, her hands clenched in his shirt, nearly rending it—not that he would have noticed or cared, not when it was clear her heart was what was truly in shreds.

They sat in the quiet hum of the Falcon’s systems for what seemed ages before she settled in his arms, respiration steady and tears seeming to have stopped.

“You can always tell ‘em no,” he eventually whispered. It hurt him to see her so distressed, almost every damned holiday. Every time she had to walk out smiling to celebrate everything about her dead home world.

Her head shook against his chest, but she finally uncurled a bit, looking up at him. “I can’t. I don’t  _ want _ to tell them no. I want…”

He cupped her cheek with his palm, thumb soothing across her temple before he kissed her there. “I know.”

“I just wish it were easier. It never gets easier. Every time, I think of a flower my mother was presented at Equinox Festival, or the speech my father gave one Hero’s Day. And I think about how they included me, brought me up to carry these things on by having me introduce her or accept a bouquet for him. About what they would be doing now.”

He remained quiet a few minutes, giving her time to think. But eventually, he asked, “You don’t think they’d be doing this?”

Wide, dark eyes met his, now clear of tears. “No, I know with every fiber of my being that they’d be doing exactly this. Which is why I want to do it too, why I need to do it, to carry it on. I want our own children to know these traditions one day.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Six years.”

“You think a kid to share this, to pass it along to, would make it easier?”

“I think,” she said slowly, choosing her words carefully, “that it might. But I know that now is not the time for that conversation.”

“Yeah, no,” he kissed her forehead. After a few moments, he asked, “Fool’s Day is the next one though, right? I can help with that.”

That finally brought a hint of a smile to her face. “You always do.”

“I can make you some tea, then we can get outta here. Go home.”

She shook her head. “I can make tea. Get her fired up, and I’ll join you in the cockpit.”

He watched as she stood, steadier than anyone would have expected seeing her ten minutes before, and walked to the tiny galley. For just a moment he watched, then rose with a nod. Before he could turn away, towards the cockpit, she was back at his side, tipping up on her toes to catch his lips, gently.

“Thank you.”

No words were necessary, he merely kissed her again, just a bit longer than she’d brushed against his lips. Then he turned and walked to the cockpit to get underway. She would join him in a few minutes, with tea for her and a toddy for him, and want to talk about anything else. As he switched on primary ignition, he tried to think of a Chewie story she hadn’t heard, to have at the ready when she came in.

When she walked in with the drinks just as they were lifting off, he asked, “Have I ever told you ‘bout the time me and Chewie were moving these things we thought were some kinda fancy art but were really poisonous bushes?”

There was an actual giggle as she settled into the copilot seat, and asked, “Poisonous bushes? That’s...not a metaphor?”

He snorted and launched into the tale.

  
  



End file.
